We are so grateful to receive The Presidents’ Community Partner Award from St. Catherine University last week! “The Presidents’ Community Partner Award is for a community-based individual or organization that has enhanced the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways.”

Celebrating St. Kate’s civic engagement at 2023 Campus Compact

Volunteers Ray and Karen Represented Mano a Mano at the Event on April 13th, 2023

Last week Karen and I dropped in to the Annual Awards of the Iowa & Minnesota Campus Compact. Mano a Mano received one of the President’s Community Partner Awards; ours from St. Catherine’s University here in St. Paul. The “award recognizes a community-based partner…that has enhanced the quality of life in the community in meaningful and measurable ways..enriching educational as well as community outcomes.” For many years interns and classes of volunteers from St. Kate’s have come to Mano a Mano. We get their valuable help in the warehouse/office and they learn how volunteering can make a real difference. I love how St Kate’s students dig into the work helping community thousands of miles away as we create community right here in Minnesota…might I say, they…are….awesome!
– Ray Wiedmeyer, Mano a Mano Volunteer Warehouse Manager

We are Grateful to St. Kate’s for the Many Ways We Work Together

Over the years, Mano a Mano has been grateful to work together with St. Kate’s in many different ways: internships through St. Kate’s Community Work and Learning; student volunteer groups; site visits as part of St. Kate’s classes; research projects with St. Kate’s classes; Citizen Katie Day; among many others!

Here is just a small sample of St. Kate’s and Mano a Mano working together over the past decade:

Opus Prize – 2012

Segundo Velasquez in Bolivia as part of the Opus trip in 2012.

On November 8, 2012, St. Kate’s University hosted an awards ceremony for the Opus Prize, an annual $1 million award recognizing an unsung hero anywhere in the world whose leadership empowers people to transform their lives and communities. Mano a Mano co-founder Segundo Velasquez was a finalist for the award and received a $100,000 prize for Mano a Mano. This video is Segundo’s speech that he made at the Opus Prize ceremony, along with comments from St. Kate’s students and faculty that traveled to Bolivia with Mano a Mano in the summer of 2012.